First, here are just a bunch of pictures from recent weeks:
- Recent Friday night dinner.
- Came home from work to find Justin ready for a bath.
- Rose’s request for face paint at school. (It’s a beaver. God bless kindergarten teachers!)
- Girls wanted a picture of the outfits they chose for school.
- Packed a picnic as an after school surprise one day. That afternoon actually turned into a disaster and I was not at my most patient and at least one of the three of us had a meltdown on the way home.
- Peter and I attempted to name all 50 states. (We forgot Wyoming.)
- Girls playing around with my phone.
- Dusting of snow on my walk to work.
My job continues to be busy but the end of this particular stretch is in sight and I’m getting the hang of several new responsibilities. It’s been challenging in parts but also nice to be challenged, you know?
Last weekend I had the opportunity to go away for the night with three friends, other moms. It was so nice to stay up late and talk honestly and eat chocolate and sit in a hot tub and connect and be honest about our lives together. I’m really thankful.
Yesterday I had the day off and had a whole slew of errands planned. But I got back from taking the girls to school to find our washing machine wasn’t working. We’d had some water disruptions the day before due to construction nearby and now the machine wasn’t filling properly. I’ll admit, normally I leave things like this for Peter. He’s handy, I’m pretty ignorant about repair. But I knew he was going to have a long day at work, get home late, and then have more work to do in the evening and I hated the thought of adding to his load. Google (and thank goodness for the internet for things like this) helped me troubleshoot until I figured out the internal valve probably needed to be cleaned, as well as showing me where said valve is. I managed to pull it apart (the hardest part was unscrewing the hoses!) and get it clean and it worked! Not a huge achievement but I was so proud of myself for figuring out the problem and getting it done!
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Well done!!! Having a crack at fixing the washing machine is a huge leap! So satisfying for you to find the fault and repair it, too.
Thank you! It was very satisfying!
When it comes to home maintenance and repair, women have been so disempowered by being led to things that they can’t do anything themselves. These days, if you’ve got Google or youtube, you can do it yourself! I think the same thing is happening with people who work in non-manual labor, like the tech industry. People are always surprised that my husband can do anything with his hands because he works in IT.
In the end, it was so much simpler than I expected. It took time because I had to stop and check instructions and I had to pull things apart, but the actual fix was very straightforward. And now I know how to do it! Peter’s quite handy and that’s partly because that’s how his dad is and partly because, as you say, boys get taught these things in a way that girls don’t. It’s something I need to be more aware of with my own girls. When I told them about fixing the washing machine, Rose solemnly told me, “I’m proud of you.”
Rose! 🥹
Well done for fixing the washing machine! My dad was a builder and joiner so I have a bit more knowledge/confidence with home maintenance than a lot of people, but I am still very proud of myself every time I fix something independently.
Peter’s quite handy so it’s far too easy for me to just let him handle home repairs. But I also don’t want to be someone who entirely depends on my husband to take care of me nor do I want my girls growing up thinking they can’t take on these types of responsibilities!